Amphibia side blog

reblogging my amphibia posts here so they're in one place. main is pyroclastic727.

[pyroclastic727]

I think the difference between Marcy and Anne is subtle. Marcy's responsibilities are shoved on her, always impossible to reach or achieve, and so she believes deep down that she isn't good enough and never will be. There's a lot of hopelessness: no point in asking for help since no one can help her, no point in trying to fix things at home because no one will listen, no point in holding onto Anne and Sasha because if there's one constant it's that Marcy always fails. Then the hope in Amphibia becomes addictive, this sort of lifeline for her.

Anne doesn't have impossible tasks forced on her, she chooses them. She assumes responsibility for certain things at certain times, whether that be keeping her friend group together or defeating an evil king. She always believes not only that she has to do it but she will do it. That's where her laziness comes in: the outcome is a guarantee to her, so it's a matter of WHEN it will happen, not if. However, once Marcy dies her list becomes much steeper and harder to attain, since she realizes that not everything works out eventually. However, her "denial" over Marcy is just consistent with her pattern of believing things will be okay.

[pyroclastic727]

It really comes down to their socioeconomic statuses.

Marcy is poor, so she believes that she will not get what she wants.

Therefore, she tends to reach for low hanging fruit, easy validation. Do well at the First Temple because that's something that can be won. Play video games because that gives her an easy "you won!" But she also has a tendency to choose large goals that can't be reached, as if she's afraid to risk the idea of failing a goal. Striving for Sasha's genuine positive regard. Sending her friends to Amphibia so they can go on adventures together. Picking either really easy or really hard things steers her away from the middle ground she fears so greatly. Because those are things that most people should be able to do, and what would she be if she failed? Standing up to her parents. Working out long distance with Anne and Sasha. Because those are goals she could get, but she can't, because Marcy believes that she generally doesn't get what she wants. The only time she genuinely hopes for something is in Amphibia, a hope that is shattered by Andrias.

Anne is middle class, so she believes things will naturally come to her.

As is typical of middle class. I basically explained this in the previous post.

Sasha is rich, so she fears she will lose what she already has.

This is part of why she seeks control, is so that she can make sure she won't lose it. When you're at the top, the only way to go is down--therefore Sasha has a lot of insecurity about losing things. Therefore a good way to manipulate her is to play threaten what she values, as we saw Andrias do: overhearing that Anne and Marcy were getting by without her, seeing Anne and Marcy conspire with the king she wanted to take down. That's why she reacts so badly to not having an opinion, not having friends, not having fun with this place, not having first place in the battle of the bands--she fears not having what she knows she can have.

[pyroclastic727]

Anne tends to straddle two worlds: gain and loss. While Marcy and Sasha pick one or the other.

That's part of why she's good at compartmentalizing: she doesn't really belong to either world in the way that everyone else does, so she has different modes. Amphibia or Earth. Thai-American home life or American-Thai school life. Dead friends who she needs to save or happy family that she can heal in. Anne contains multitudes, and the deep-seated belief that she has to pick a side.

[pyroclastic727]

The First Temple predicted every death in the series--including Anne’s

On impulse, I rewatched The First Temple before watching The Beginning of the End, which proved to be an excellent idea. I was always confused why the first temple had this added emphasis: no title sequence, twice the length as the other temples. 

With the new episode out, and Darcy’s threat to kill Anne, the answer is clear. The First Temple foreshadowed every death in the series.

Our first indicator is an off-handed line Marcy gives. “No frog, toad, or newt has ever survived the temple.” But the weight of the foreshadowing falls in the games they play.

First, Marcy gets so caught up in making sure that the Rubik’s cube is in the perfect configuration, that she doesn’t care how she’s hurting her friends. Similarly, Sasha got so caught up in controlling Anne, that she didn’t realize how she was hurting her. And then she did, and decided to fall off a cliff and almost die.

The second one is, of course, Amphibia’s witty and somewhat infuriating way of teasing Marcy’s death. In the temple with the green squares, there are two ways to die. One is by being crushed. The other is by being burned alive by a blade-like flame. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Their third trial was the one that confused me, though. It taught humility, which I took as an indicator that the temples are malicious in nature–Marcy has an ego problem, meaning she bounces between extreme confidence and extreme humility, defaulting to the second as her more basic response, and a benevolent wit temple would teach her about the balance between those things.

Well, now it all makes sense. We’ve got a chess board, similar to the one Andrias set up. We have most of our characters on the good side, except one, dressed in black, helmet on her head, unwillingly forced to try to kill the people who she so deeply cares about.

Then, what Anne says to Hop Pop? “Just because I’m mad at you, doesn’t mean I want to kill you!” That’s the key to Marcy’s forgiveness of Anne and mostly Sasha for being shitty friends.

Meanwhile, the end of the game was the chilling part. Marcy flipped the wart. Got rid of her lead, the one player she needed in order to win.

Anne is the one player we need in order to win.

Hence, Anne will die, to save the game. They have to forfeit, because Andrias cheats at the game (brings dead people back to life), so they will have to cheat at the game as well.

[pyroclastic727]

Moving in sync, or agreeing on their ideas, instead of pushing each other around. Tried and failed at Reunion.

Untangling themselves while still holding hands. Sifting through a web of lies and betrayal without losing each other. Tried and failed at True Colors.

Trust fall. Putting all your faith in the others to catch you, even if it hurts you. The threat to kill Anne. I wonder what will happen there.

[pyroclastic727]

Anne is absolutely gonna die next episode.

She’s gonna die to save Marcy, the culmination of her responsibility, and proof of her devotion to Marcy. 

Marcy is going to hold her dead friend in her arms, just like how she died in front of Anne, so many seasons ago.

Of course she’s going to die, because they have mossmen with healing properties, and the other two have calamity powers that have yet to be activated. Plus, Sasha and Marcy already had their life-threatening experiences. 

Marcy always said to Anne, “trust me.” Anne didn’t have a reason to trust her. But this time she will. She’ll trust that Marcy knows how to read the letter from Leif, since she wrote letters to Andrias, and he read them with the same glasses. She’ll trust that Marcy knows how to heal her, since Marcy heard Andrias talk about the healing powers of the mossmen. 

Anne will die to save them all. 

But it’s okay, she’ll be revived in the finale. 

[pyroclastic727]

I just can’t get over how they handled the reversal of Anne’s friendships.

How in the beginning, it was Anne, Sasha, and Marcy. But things happened, and Sasha disappeared to rage across the countryside, and Anne and Marcy were all who remained.

When Anne was new to Newtopia, it was Marcy who was by her side, asking her to trust her, leaping into the mouth of a dangerous insect in order to save her friends. It was Marcy who explored the basement of Newtopia, navigating mirrored hallways and fighting off Shadowfish with her. 

In Wartwood, it was Marcy who fought hard to win the approval of the citizens. It was Marcy who flew with Anne to take on the temples, and Marcy who stayed by Anne’s side through any type of trial.

While Sasha was being a jerk and suffering the consequences, Marcy was everything Anne wanted.

But Marcy had made one mistake, one horrible mistake that loomed over her head. And when Andrias found her, scared of the same thing she has always feared, he encouraged her to take on another mistake.

So then we all know what happened. Anne found Sasha, they hugged, they fought and made up. Sasha made her second mistake, the one to supplement her first, and she got away with it. Marcy didn’t, no, she got stabbed through the heart and lost everyone she ever loved.

Then Anne is back in Amphibia. She’s back and there’s Sasha, promising that she’s done with it all, done with the mistakes, and ready to be a better friend than she was before. A slight mention of Marcy, that she’s alive and somewhere out there. That’s all.

They take on a possessed centipede, and it’s Anne and Sasha, and sure Marcy’s memory is there too, but is it really? Sasha can use a grappling hook like Marcy can. She can save Sprig from the stomach of a giant bug like Marcy can. She can hold Anne by the shoulders and cry out that she doesn’t want to lose her again. She can hug her tightly and fall to the ground and watch Anne laugh because she can’t believe she’s still there, still alive, still fighting to be with her.

Then they search for the Mother of Olms, and it’s Anne and Sasha, with the Plantars there too. They don’t even mention that they need Marcy, only that people deserve to be given a second chance after making a mistake, that they should come together. And then Anne looks at Sasha and sees this girl who has fought so hard to better herself, and she starts to take on a different shape in Anne’s mind, like she’s highlighted.

Well then it’s their actual meeting with the Mother of Olms, and it’s Anne and Sasha and Anne and Sasha and you hardly notice that Sprig and Polly didn’t have any lines. Traversing the Olm’s brain, it’s the same thing as going through those mirrored tunnels, a dangerous adventure where the two of them fit together so well, and they find what they’re looking for. 

And sure, maybe there’s something missing, maybe if you’ve been here long enough, it feels like you’ve read this before. But does that matter, when Anne and Sasha are perfectly fine on their own, they’re perfect on their own?

Of course it does. Because Anne knows better.

Intertwining her hand with Sasha’s, telling her that she’ll make a great resistance leader, watching the heat rush to her cheeks, she remembers how that felt with another girl. Traveling through mysterious crypts to reach answers, she remembers the Newtopian dungeon where she did this before. She’s been there, and this time, the girl in front of her isn’t all she can see, because Anne knows better than to forget her best friend.

Amphibia did that. They wrote it so Anne lost her best friend, regained another who could nearly suffice, but still decided to hold on. They wrote a world where one horrible fear would rip Marcy away from Anne, but Anne knows when to fear and when to trust now, so she still chases after her. They wrote a world where Marcy’s greatest fear, of being forgotten, left behind, could never come true, not when it’s happened before, not when her two best friends have a chance to try again and make everything right.

And he did it so authentically, you’d almost believe that things won’t get any worse.

[pyroclastic727]

some very important images

[pyroclastic727]

their dynamic,,,, they’re such an important duo

[pyroclastic727]

ANNE’S FACE LMAOOO

[pyroclastic727]

So this scene proves that:

1. Anne can transfer Sasha and Marcy’s power back to them, which has great promise for a scene between Anne and Sasha, and of course the scene where Anne rescues Marcy

2. The powers are rightfully theirs, meaning that anyone who wielded the gems before them had stolen it

3. Mother Olm describes Amphibia being the “worst version” of itself, implying that Amphibia’s culture was foolish beforehand. This makes me think of the temples that drain power, a power made only for the three girls to use, and of the culture that may have surrounded that command and channeling of stolen power

[pyroclastic727]

The prophecy!

[pyroclastic727]

Mother Olm’s lore about the prophecy: that the Core cannot sleep or die, and the three stars serve a greater purpose, to save Amphibia from its worst side

[pyroclastic727]

this seemed familiar

[pyroclastic727]

“I know they’re just soldiers to you, but to me they’re everything.”

If this is how the two of them respond to Wartwood citizens in trouble, then how will they react to Darcy?

[pyroclastic727]

Sasha “oh they’ll be fine, how about we just hang out without them and have fun and talk about our feelings just you and me and no one else” Waybright

[pyroclastic727]

and for our weekly dose of sashanne…

[pyroclastic727]

DISNEY THIS IS GETTING EXCESSIVE

[pyroclastic727]

Color Symbolism and Marcy’s Final Emotional Arc

Sashanne is yellow.

No, look at it! Even though there’s a lot of green and red–we’ve seen that in Reunion–overall, most Sashanne interactions have a yellow wash over them. I think maybe the only exception to that is when they’re on earth, and they’ve got that somber green-blue color.

Now look at this. Marcanne is cyan. Look at how different Anne’s hair color is in each! Cyan makes red look more red, and yellow makes red look less.

Even Sasharcy has its own color, though I can’t say I have much proof of that, because. You know. When have they ever interacted. But it’s magenta, meaning that each pairing of the trio follows the subtractive color model. To simplify that: it’s like the primary colors of printing.

Anyone familiar with the show knows that color has a strong place in Amphibia’s symbolism. Each girl has their own calamity theme color, being green, cyan, and pink. They also have their own outfit colors that they gravitate to; for further analysis of that, I’d direct you to this post and its replies.

As for their relationship colors? They’re not just confined to those relationship scenes. Remember Anne’s favorite color, in her childhood? 

Before coming to Amphibia, Anne saw Sasha as first, and Marcy as second. She had a tendency to follow Sasha’s commands, even when she really didn’t want to. This subservience could be a subtle preference; maybe not of personality, but of attention. Anne was much more likely to follow Sasha than to follow Marcy. 

Even after landing in Amphibia, Anne had one yellow shoe on, one off. Besides being a hallmark of her design, isn’t it funny that she had lost part of the yellow from her wardrobe, at about the time that she stopped letting Sasha push her around?

In Season 2, it’s really obvious what Anne’s color is.

Cyan, to Anne, is the color of her heart. It’s all of her emotions, spilling out of her, fueling her. It’s a color given to her by Amphibia, by the music box, by the gift that Marcy researched, that Sasha suggested, that Anne stole. 

It’s a color she received from Marcy: the joy of being loved, the safety of having a companion by her side, the overwhelming, paralyzing pain of losing her. It’s the color of her heart, the color of her feelings. 

And yet, the yellow is still there. A yellow jacket that she put on when she got home. A yellow shoe, as the other keeps falling off. And now that she’s in Amphibia, we haven’t seen the cyan, not yet.

Why does this matter? Well, let me show you where else we’ve seen the Sashanne color scheme.

That’s right. Marcy’s nightmare. The sky in this scene is the sky of the polluted Amphibia, something Marcy wouldn’t have seen in the pickle jar. No, the reason why she sees this sky is because it’s yellow, it’s Sashanne-colored. A perfect place for the Sashanne monster to form a heart-shape with their torso and declare that Marcy is unforgiveable.

And what’s that in the background? Right, the famous balloons. Yellow and cyan, two colors that seem inconspicuous until you realize what they mean, where they’ve been, what they symbolize. The lockers behind Marcy are that green-blue that you see in the Reunion flashbacks. They’re the color of fear, and when you see what she’s afraid of, it’s that yellow sky and the idea of Sashanne having a better life without her.

And isn’t ironic? They are having a better life without her.

The parallels are obvious already, and as of writing this I’ve only seen Commander Anne. Swinging across a gap with a grappling hook. Saving Sprig from the stomach of a bug. Running into her arms to tightly hug her on the right side of the screen, then pull away with a crooked smile. Holding her by the shoulders, asking to not lose her, then watching her smile and ask for a bit of trust. It’s like Sasha is the better version of Marcy, doing the same thing that she and Anne used to do, but without the one mistake looming over her.

Where does that leave Marcy? Marcy, the person who brought her friends to another world so that she wouldn’t lose them? Marcy, who looked into the fear machine and saw her two best friends, swearing that they wouldn’t forgive her?

Sasha’s jealousy came from the idea that Anne and Marcy shouldn’t be getting by without her. Marcy’s envy comes from fear, the idea that Anne and Sasha seem to be much better off without her. 

Hell, she’s connected to a hivemind. What’s to say that she doesn’t see the parallels already? If she doesn’t see it now, then she will eventually, and relatively soon.

Isn’t that so horrible? That Marcy could watch herself be so easily replaced? That she could so easily come to believe that wanting Anne and Sasha is a mistake?

That’s where Marcy’s final battle comes in. @the-chaotic-lesbian​ pointed out to me that it’d be easy for the Core to use these fears against Marcy, to tell her that her friends don’t want her there, that she should give in. 

The thing is, that’s been Marcy’s pattern, this whole show. Backing away, letting her fear keep her on the sidelines. In Day at the Aquarium, she lets Anne go back to Wartwood. In New Wartwood, she accepts that the town won’t like her that easily. At the beginning of the series, she sends her friends to Amphibia, rather than ask them to choose her. (evidence courtesy of @starfoe​ ). She has a lot to be afraid of, a lot to run from, a lot to face.

But when she’s up against the Core? That’s something that’s willing to use her fears against her. Something that’s willing to pin her against her greatest fear: are Anne and Sasha better off without her, or does she deserve to take up space in their hearts? Does she deserve to be loved, to be liked, to stand next to them and assert that they won’t leave her, she won’t let them go that easily?

How perfect would it be? For the girl ruled with fear, the girl who brought about her own end…to decide, to fight for the fact that she deserves to be forgiven, to be loved?